Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/783

 uttered by Chrysostom in reference to their peculiar views about sin after baptism, "Approach [the altar] though you may have repented a thousand times," led to a literary controversy between him and the learned and witty Sisinnius, Novatianist bp. of Constantinople (vi. 21, 22). About 374 a schism occurred in their ranks concerning the true time of Easter. Hitherto the Novatianists had strictly observed the Catholic rule. A few obscure Phrygian bishops, however, convened a synod at Pazum or Pazacoma, and agreed to celebrate the same day as that on which the Jews keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This canon was passed in the absence of Agelius of Constantinople, Maximus of Nice, and the bishops of Nicomedia and Cotyaeum, their leading men (iv. 28). Jewish influence was also at work, as Sozomen (vii. 18) tells us that a number of priests, converted by the Novatianists at Pazum during the reign of Valens, still retained their Jewish ideas about Easter. To this sect was given the name Protopaschitae (Cod. Theod. u.s. p. 1581, where severe penalties are denounced against them as worshippers of a different Christ because observing Easter otherwise than the orthodox). This question, when raised by a presbyter of Jewish birth named, some 20 years later, caused a further schism among the Novatianists at Constantinople, under the episcopate of Marcian, 391; whence the name Sabbatiani. These finally coalesced with the Montanists, though we can trace their distinct existence till the middle of the 5th cent. (Socr. H. E. v. 21; Soz. H. E. vii. 16; Cod. Theod. u.s. pp. 1566, 1570, 1581.) Many particulars of the customs of the Eastern Novatianists and as to their reflex influence on the church as regards auricular confession are in Socr. H. E. v. 19, 22, who in c. 19 ascribes the original establishment of the office of penitentiary presbyter and secret confession to the Novatianist schism. [ (4).] The succession of Novatianist patriarchs of Constantinople during the 4th cent. was Acesius, Agelius, Marcianus, Sisinnius (Socr. H. E. v. 21, vi. 22 ; Soz. H. E. vii. 14). During the 5th cent. the Novatianists continued to flourish notwithstanding occasional troubles. In Constantinople their bishops during the first half of the cent. were Sisinnius, d. 412, Chrysanthus, d. 419, Paul, d. 438, and Marcian. They lived on amicable terms with the orthodox patriarch Atticus, who, remembering their fidelity under the Arian persecution, protected them from their enemies. Paul enjoyed the reputation of a miracle-worker, and died in the odour of universal sanctity, all sects and parties uniting in singing psalms at his funeral (Socr. H. E. vii. 46). In Alexandria, however, they were persecuted by Cyril, their bp. Theopemptus and their churches plundered; but they continued to exist in large numbers in that city till the 7th cent., when Eulogius, Catholic patriarch of Alexandria, wrote a treatise against them (Phot. Cod. 182, 208; Ceill. xi. 589). Even in Scythia their churches existed, as we find Marcus, a bp. from that country, present at the death of Paul, Novatianist bp. of Constantinople, July 21, 438. In Asia Minor they were as widely dispersed as the Catholics. In parts of it, indeed, the orthodox party seem for long to have been completely absorbed by those who took the Puritan view, e.g. Epiphanius tells us that there were no Catholics for 112 years in the city of Thyatira (Haer. li.; Lumper, Hist. SS. PP. viii. 259). They had established a regular parochial system. Thus (in Boeckh, Corp. Gr. Inscriptt., iv. 9268) we find at Laodicea in Lycaonia an inscription on a tombstone erected by one Aurelia Domna to her husband Paul, deacon of the holy church of the Novatianists, while even towards the end of the preceding century St. Basil, though hesitating on grounds similar to those of Cyprian to recognize their baptism, concludes in its favour on the express ground that it was for the advantage and profit of the populace that it should be received (Basil, Ep. clxxxviii. ad Amphiloch.; cf. R. T. Smith's Basil the Great, p. 119). After the close of the 5th cent. we find few notices of their history. Their protest about the lapsed became obsolete and their adherents fell away to the church or to sects like the Montanists. A formal notice of their existence in the East occurs in the 95th canon of the Trullan (Quinisext) Council 692. In the West we have no such particular details of their history as in the East. Yet there is clear evidence of their widespread and long-continued influence. Already we have noted their extension into S. Gaul and Africa in their very earliest days. In Alexandria also we have noted its last historical manifestation. Between the middle of 3rd cent., when it arose, and the close of the 5th, we find repeated indications of its existence and power. Constantine's decree (Cod. Theod. XVI. v. 2, with Gothofred's comment), giving them a certain restricted liberty, was directed to Bassus, probably vicarius of Italy. Towards the close of the 4th cent. we find a regular succession of Novatianist bishops existing—doubtless from Novatian's time—at Rome, and held in such high repute for piety that the emperor Theodosius granted his life to the celebrated orator Symmachus on the prayer of the Novatianist pope Leontius, 388. Early in the 5th cent., however, pope Celestine persecuted them, deprived them of their churches, and compelled Rusticula their bishop to hold his meetings in private, an act which Socrates considers another proof of the overweening and unchristian insolence of the Roman see (H. E. vii. 11). In the Code several severe edicts were directed about the same time against the Novatianists (Cod. Theod. ed. Haenel, lib. xvi. tit. v. legg. 59, 65, cf. vi. 6). In S. Gaul, N. Italy, and Spain the sect seems to have taken as firm root as in Phrygia and central Asia Minor. Whether the original religious teaching of the people whose Christianity may have been imported from Africa but a short time before by, or the physical features, e.g. the mountainous character of these countries, may not have inclined them towards its stern discipline is a fair question. The treatises which Pacian of Barcelona and Ambrose of Milan felt necessary to direct against them are couched in language which proves the sect to have been then an aggressive one and a real danger to the church by the assertion of its superior sanctity and purity.